Another cleanup in the aquarium last weekend (Valentines Day :p). The focus was firstly remove the algae, but also free the red mushroom from the Halimeda growing around it, something I tried last week but couldn’t finish because some clownfish was bothering me.
But first we took out the Toadstool Mushroom Coral (and rock) because the attempt to kill the sea anemone did fail after all, it showed his head again Friday. After taking it out we put it in a dish and started injecting the anemone with boiling water again and squirted some more into the rock and over the little sea anemone. Everywhere in the dish you could see small creatures trying to escape, some that looked like worms, and one that looked a bit like a shrimp. Some of them survived and got back, others didn’t make it. But most important, we now do think the sea anemone is dead, the big one and one of the small ones. However, I did notice something that looked like a small sea anemone again yesterday after placing the Toadstool back. Just going to keep my eye on it, and hope the peppermint shrimps finish this one off.
The Toadstool coral was clearly not amused by the whole mission, he was fully folded when we put him back and stayed that way the rest of the day.
But the mushroom is now (couple of days later) fully restored, and still no sign of the sea anemones. I think this time we won the battle


After that all the pumps and lights went out and the real cleaning started. First clean the windows again using our scrapper and after that suck out water and dirt/algae with a hose. During this cleaning the Kenya tree got stuck on the hose, so he got another hit to take. Didn’t seem to have any visual damage, so don’t expect it to die or anything, it’s a strong coral luckily .


After that part it was time to remove the Halimeda, while my girlfriend tried to keep the clownfish at a distance I tried to remove allot of it around the red mushroom. However, it’s harder then we expected, since the mushroom has its foot right on top of one of the Halimeda’s roots. But allot of it was cleared around it, so just hope the one or two left underneath the mushroom die because a lack of light. The mushroom didn’t like it much, he retracted fully and at night was hardly visible. But he was doing a bit better already the next morning, so we just wait and hope we don’t have to remove the rest of the Halimeda anytime soon.


The hermit crab is still doing fine. Yesterday I finally found some new shells for him. I bought two different types of shells for him, so he has a choice . The reason I went yesterday was because he seemed to be stuck and I thought he might wanted to get rid of his shell.


Talking about being stuck, the mouse is acting pretty weird and got stuck a couple of days ago (same place as the hermit crab). After my girlfriend freed him she accidently moved some rocks, after which she was scared the bulb anemone was stuck. So I moved the rock next to him aside so that there is no chance of him being stuck. The Blue Tang likes the change, she is swimming through the new holes constantly.


And here are some other highlights from the pictures I took Wednesday